Romain Grosjean was once again elated with the performance of his Haas F1 car and team following his second successive point-scoring finish with the new team in Bahrain.

Grosjean followed up his sixth in Melbourne with fifth place in the Bahrain Grand Prix, and is now level on points with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen in the World Championship.

On his in-lap, Grosjean said over the radio: "Unbelievable guys – this is the American dream! What a great job from all of you, I love you – beautiful! I've got brakes this year, that helps."

Grosjean ran an aggressive three-stop strategy, and twice used supersoft tyres on his shorter runs to charge past his rivals.

"It was unbelievable fighting with the Williams, Red Bulls and Toro Rossos," said Grosjean. "I didn't have any issues, I could drive the car the way I wanted on an aggressive strategy on the supersoft tyres.

"There are plenty of areas where we can improve but this [continues] the dream debut.

"I'm very happy in the car, I have big confidence in the braking, which allows me to attack – I very much love the platform in the car and systems inside. It allows me to unlock its potential.